Written on 12:35 PM by Sarthak K

Invitation Spam has become a major problem for Facebook members ever since they introduced the f8 platform. And unfortunately, Facebook still offers no solution to deal with this growing menace.

For instance, there are around 40 pending messages in my Facebook account each inviting me to “some” Facebook application. To clear this queue alone, I will have to hit the Ignore button on Facebook minimum 40 times.

The worst part is that each time I approve a new friend request on Facebook, this long web page loads itself in the browser. So it also makes Facebook slow.

Facebook is one platform which I really like...its way better than myspace and orkut and generally less spammy. But with such a plethora of applications, and the fact that all of them want a viral way to access your information, will mean that you'll get scores (maybe more, it depends..) of invitations from your friends to install an application.

Is there any solution to this growing menace? Maybe an "ignore all application invites" button would be a good option!

Written on 1:49 AM by Sarthak K

Joining the cast of the sixth Harry Potter movie are Academy Award-winner Jim Broadbent (Iris) as Potions Professor Horace Slughorn and Helen McCrory who earned rave reviews playing the wife of Prime Minister Tony Blair in the critically acclaimed drama, The Queen. McCrory's taking on the role of Draco Malfoy's mother, Narcissa.

In addition to Broadbent and McCrory, newcomers to the Harry Potter movie franchise will include Jessie Cave as Lavender Brown. Jessie, a 20-year-old actress, is about to appear on TV in new CBBC drama Summerhill, and on the big screen in forthcoming film Inkheartopposite Dame Helen Mirren. She is two years older than the age stipulated at the audition in July. Then, producers held an open casting call for girls aged 15-18 at Earls Court in London and said "no acting experience necessary". Around 7,000 hopefuls queued for hours in a bid to win the role of their dreams.

Lavender is Ron Weasley's girlfriend and a fellow pupil at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She kisses him constantly and calls him "Won Won" - much to his dismay - while he secretly pines for Hermione Granger.

Meanwhile, Ralph Fiennes’s nine-year-old nephew has landed a part in the next Harry Potter film – playing a younger version of Fiennes’s character. Hero Fiennes Tiffin will join his uncle and cast regulars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in which he plays Lord Voldemort, the villain, as an 11-year-old.

Frank Dillane, the 16-year-old son of the actor Stephen Dillane, will play the teenage Voldemort. The Harry Potter rookies will be joining a huge batch of returning Harry Potter cast members.

Written on 10:04 AM by Sarthak K

India's Tata group and Hewlett-Packard said onTuesday they had built the Asia-Pacific region's most powerful supercomputer - in a major boost to scientific research in India.The supercomputer has made it into a top ten of the world's fastest supercomputers. In fact, it made it to the 4th place in a list of top 500 supercomputers.

Computer giant IBM continues to dominate the list - which is compiled twice a year. Its Blue Gene/L supercomputer - used to ensure the US nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable - comes out at number one.

Computational Research Laboratories (CRL), a wholly owned Tata unit, built the machine, named "Eka" ("the one" in Sanskrit), using HP's high-end "computer building blocks," the two companies said.

Scientists and engineers would have the ability to perform 120 trillion "floating point operations" per second using the supercomputer, the most powerful in Asia including Japan and the world's fourth most powerful, they said.

The speed of floating point operations, or FLOPS, is an important measure of performance for computers, especially in scientific calculations.

The system will be initially targeted at developing applications such as neural, molecular and crash simulations, and digital media animation and rendering.

"The supercomputer system will have a direct affect on the lives of Indians, espcially in areas such as earthquake and Tsunami modelling, modellings of the economy and potential for drug design,"

said Mr S. Ramadorai, chairman of the Computational Research Laboratories, which is a subsidiary of Indian firm Tata.

The supercomputer, which uses the fastest processors made by microchip giant Intel, promises to help push scientific and industrial discovery to "unprecedented limits,"

Third place on the top 500 list went to a new supercomputing centre based in New Mexico, while fifth place went to another Hewlett-Packard system installed at a Swedish government agency.